When the Cat's Away, the Mice Do All the Work
by at-kb
Summary: How did Aizen find the time to make his evil scheme and keep up his appearances as a captain?  Well, it helps to have an illusion-type zanpakuto and a minion or two. Humor, crack-ish.


It was a little bit annoying to be told off for disappearing from work when, in fact, he was doing nothing but work all day. Okay, so it was Aizen's work and not his own work, but it was still boring. He suspected Aizen didn't really even have anything specially important to do today, but rather a) enjoyed seeing how much he could piss Gin off before Gin would show it and b) got tired of doing the nice-guy façade after a while and found going to Hueco Mundo and bossing a few Hollows around to be a refreshing change of pace.

In any case, that morning Aizen had released his shikai, done his thing and strolled off to Hollow-land, and now Gin was left walking around looking like a dope in glasses all day. Again. Apparently Kyouka Suigetsu's illusions worked better when there was a person to project them onto, rather than creating an illusory Aizen out of thin air. So Aizen said.

They had tried it with Tousen once before, but that hadn't gone so well considering that unlike Gin, who was notorious for his habits of slacking off and disappearing, Tousen was actually known for his devotion to his work, and therefore his absence all day had drawn a lot of attention. Since the whole point of the exercise was not to draw attention, this more or less left only one person who could take Aizen's place when Aizen decided to take off.

And that was why, at the unbearably early hour of ten a.m., Gin was not in his nice homey office, or, even better, in his nice warm bed, but instead at the Academy, conducting Aizen's hour-long calligraphy class. Gin mostly had to make it up as he went along, because what did he know about calligraphy, but the students didn't really seem to notice or care because it wasn't like they were really there to learn calligraphy either. All he had to do was lift his brush and there'd be a gale of infatuated sighs.

Now, if it had been a bunch of attractive men and women, Gin might've got more of a kick out of it, but sometimes he wondered what exactly Aizen got out of manipulating every teenager in Seireitei to have a crush on him. Maybe Aizen had some kind of machine that ran off of teenage lust, he pondered, patting another second-year on her head in approval. She looked like she was about to asphyxiate.

Afterwards, to shake off his boredom, he went into the bathroom and made silly Aizen faces at himself in the mirror; it was disturbing to try his own "creep out Kuchiki Rukia" smile and get Aizen's "gentle kindly leader" smile as a reflection. He stuck his tongue out at himself, just to see Aizen do it, and then went off to sit at Aizen's desk and try to actually do work.

"Aizen-taichou . . . are you not feeling well?" Hinamori said tentatively, wringing her hands, as Gin rested his chin on his hand and stared at Aizen's paperwork.

"Oh—I'm feeling fine, Hinamori-kun," Gin said in his most pretend-sincere voice. "No need to worry . . . but I appreciate your concern." Hinamori blushed (if only she knew) and Gin picked at his tofu. Of course, he wasn't allowed to eat any of the stuff he liked, because it was out of character for Aizen, but seriously—tofu was probably one of his least favorite foods in the world. Aizen was such a bastard.

Then it was time for tea with Ukitake, which was barrels of fun. People might criticize Gin for . . . you know, everything about Kira, but at least there weren't two Kiras constantly bickering in the background of his office like some kind of persistent auditory torture.

Gin asked Ukitake about his health.

Ukitake said that he was recovering well from his most recent bout of illness, and hoping to make a trip to the hot springs soon.

Gin said he was glad to hear it.

Ukitake asked whether Sousuke-kun had been to the hot springs recently, as they had installed some kind of new thing.

Gin said that was interesting and perhaps he would visit soon.

Ukitake coughed delicately into his handkerchief.

Gin looked at his tea and considered suicide.

His walk back to the fifth division was at least briefly enlivened by Kira rushing by and asking him whether he had seen Ichimaru-taichou, who—and here Kira lowered his voice as though it was some kind of secret that might besmirch Gin's non-existent good reputation—had not come into work this morning.

Gin said in fact he had just seen Ichimaru-taichou right over there, around that corner, and watched with gratification as Kira sped off in that direction. This, he thought, was why Kira was clearly a better vice-captain than Hinamori.

All too soon, though, it was back to paperwork again. It did seem a little rough that Aizen expected him to do his paperwork, Gin thought, considering that Gin never did his own. He wasn't even certain what half of these forms were _for_. It had been especially painful, too, when he'd seen Rangiku hurrying past his window on her way back from her usual extended lunch, half-stood up to go surprise her and perhaps finish the jug off with her, and then realized that if he did so he would get first a confused dismissal from Rangiku and later a sword in the guts from Aizen (for besmirching Aizen's extremely good reputation).

At four p.m., he was slumped at Aizen's desk, still stonily pretending he wasn't aware of Hinamori gazing at him adoringly from across the room and contemplating setting all the papers on fire when at last something amusing walked into his office.

It was Aizen, disguised as him, Gin, but doing a terrible job pulling it off as always. Aizen was great at the nice-guy act, but he could never imitate Gin worth a damn, no matter how convincing the illusion of his appearance and voice was; where Gin was vaguely creepy, Aizen always just came off as deranged. Hinamori was looking at him right now, obviously wondering what the hell was wrong with him—how did Aizen not realize? Gin supposed Aizen was so used to being perfect at everything, it didn't seem to occur to him that he might ever _not_ be perfect at something. It was a good thing to remember.

Gin hid his smirk in his sleeve and followed the strange facsimile of himself to a hidden spot where Aizen dropped both their illusions.

"Well, I hope you had a productive day, Gin," Aizen said, back to his normal self.

"Oh, yes, Aizen-taichou," Gin said, making sure to grin and hopefully leave Aizen guessing a little about what he'd gotten up to.

Take that, ya bastard, he thought, flopping into his own comfortable chair in the third division to the harmonious call of the Common Kira Izuru: "Ichimaru-taichou!"

"Hello, Izuru," he said happily, poking through his desk drawers for something not-disgusting to eat.

Kira swallowed—Gin could see him arguing internally about what to say—and then finally came out with a remonstrative, "I was looking for you all day, taichou."

"Ah, Izuru, I'm tired," Gin said, stretching. "I was workin' so hard today."

Kira looked dubious, but he just went on to tell Gin everything that he'd done in his absence. Kira could practically run the division himself at this point. That would probably come in handy soon enough.

Gin pulled out Shinsou and looked at himself in the blade. It wasn't a face like Ukitake's or Aizen's that would get the Shinigami Women's Association all worked up, but it was his own face, and he kind of missed it when it was gone. Plus, Aizen's glasses were just dorky-looking.

"And this morning I went to Aizen-taichou's calligraphy lecture—I hope that's okay," Kira added. "It was so wonderful—I really think I learned a lot. It's amazing how Aizen-taichou finds the time, with all the other work he has to do."

"Very observant of ya, Izuru," said Gin with a sigh, leaning back in his chair.

* * *

**Review** please I guess, or not.

PS: I love Ukitake and I also love tofu and I like Hinamori too, although not as much as Ukitake or tofu.


End file.
